


These Scars Are Ours To Keep

by skinsharpenedteeth (Skinsharpenedteeth)



Series: tumblr prompts 2020 [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex is a hot mess, Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Michael is a good friend, Post S2, Prompt Fic, Self-Harm, Tumblr Prompt, forrest and alex are dating, forrest is a good boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27118961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skinsharpenedteeth/pseuds/skinsharpenedteeth
Summary: Michael gets a call in the middle of the night from Forrest to come help Alex. He's locked himself in the bathroom and something is obviously wrong with him. Michael doesn't know how wrong until he gets there but he won't let Alex deal with this night alone.
Relationships: Forrest Long/Alex Manes, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: tumblr prompts 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979497
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97
Collections: Roswell New Mexico ▶ Michael Guerin / Alex Manes





	These Scars Are Ours To Keep

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Self-Harm, References to Self-Harm. It's literally the plot of the fic so please be forewarned. 
> 
> Written to fill a Tumblr Prompt : "I love you! Is that what you wanted to hear?!" sent to me by an anonymous person of good taste for annnggsst.
> 
> Not Beta'd so any mistakes are my own. Thanks!

Michael got the call a little after midnight. He’d been down in bunker under the junk yard making diagrams for a project he wanted to start when his phone started buzzing across the worktable. He furrowed his brow and stared at it for a moment, not recognizing the number on the screen and feeling a little leery of any signal that could get to him underground. Normally when he was in the bunker, his phone was for keeping time and no one could get a call through to him. He let the phone go to voicemail before turning back to his drawings. Seconds later it started buzzing again, the same number lighting up the phone’s screen and taunting him. He it go to voicemail. He let it go to voicemail three more times before he finally couldn’t stand it any longer and picked up the phone.

“Whoever you are, it should be pretty obvious I’m not taking any calls ri—” he started, sarcasm being his best and most beloved defense mechanism.

“Michael?! It’s Forrest,” a frantic sounding voice cut him off. Michael paused, looking at his phone in confusion before answering.

“Forrest? Nazi Forrest?” Michael asked, curiosity beating out annoyance. Why was Forrest calling _him_? He and Alex had been dating for about a month and from what Michael could tell from his brief run-ins with them, things were going well. Was something wrong with Alex?

“Yeah, hey…. I hate to ask this, but uh… can you come over to Alex’s?” Forrest asked, sounding nervous and ready to be told to go to hell. He apparently had no idea how many awkward situations Michael would go through in order to make Alex happy.

“I mean, I guess I can head that way? What’s up? Everything alright over there? Need me to fix a busted pipe or something?” Michael asked, already shutting off the lights in the bunker and cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder as he moves around the room.

“Uh… Look, lemme level with you. I got hear about an hour ago and Alex seemed about three drinks ahead of me. Not like… hammered, but obviously drunk. We were… uhm… anyway, we were messing around and he just like… freaked out on me and locked himself in the bathroom? Now he’s crying and I can hear him saying your name occasionally and honestly, I don’t know what to do?” Forrest sounded almost apologetic that he had to call Michael and admit that they’d been “messing around”.

“What did you do to him? If you hurt him, motherfucker, I will fucking kill you, Michael replied with a steady voice despite being almost blinded by the sudden flush of rage through his system.

“Dude, I would never! No, we weren’t even doing anything interesting yet. We were just making out and he like… broke away and bolted for the bathroom. I thought he was going to vomit or something, but then he was in there for like… a long time and I didn’t hear anything so I went to check on him and that’s when I realized he’d locked the door and he was like… crying or something,” Forrest explained. Michael climbed the ladder as quickly as he could and ran to his truck, throwing himself the cab and throwing the ignition in almost one movement. “Look, are you coming over or what?”

“I’m on my way. Just try to keep him calm if you can. Talk to him through the door,” Michael advised.

“Obviously,” Forrest replied sarcastically. Michael wanted to gut him for the attitude, but instead settled for just hanging up on him. He tossed the phone onto the dash and peeled out of the junkyard and towards Alex’s house. He really hoped it was his house and not the cabin but figured Forrest would have clarified if it had been out of town.

As he drove, Michael tried to think of things he knew would trigger Alex to binge drinking and break down, but he had to admit to himself that he didn’t know of anything off hand. Alex was the controlled one, the one who dealt with his emotions by repressing the hell out of them until they blew up in a volcanic fit all over anyone unlucky enough to be around. This sounded more like Michael’s way of handling the Too Much of his brain and heart, escaping into a false euphoria that numbed the outer world for a while. Maybe this was one of those volcanic fits, maybe he’d be fine with a little sleep and some Pedialyte.

Michael turned into Alex’s driveway ten minutes after hanging up with Forrest (shaving five minutes off his normal drive time by speeding unapologetically in his worry to get to Alex). When he arrived, Forrest met him outside in the driveway looking frazzled. Michael started to blow past him when he felt Forrest catch his arm.

“What!” Michael yelled, yanking his arm out of Forrest’s grasp.

“Michael, wait! Wait! Let’s talk for a moment, I think I figured out what this is,” Forrest called after him, catching Michael’s shirt and slowing him on his way to the front door. Michael rounded on him with a snarl.

“What do you think this is about then, Forrest? What did you do?!” he asked through gritted teeth, summoning every last drop of patience in his body for anything other than Alex. Forrest looked at him with wide eyes, taking half a step back from Michael and dropping his hand.

“I told you, man, I didn’t do anything. I wouldn’t hurt Alex on purpose _or force him to do anything he didn’t want to do!”_ Forrest added quickly, voice rising when Michael opened his mouth to speak. “I think this is about you.”

Michael reared back like he’d been slapped.

“How could I have done anything to Alex? I haven’t even talked to him in like… three weeks? Not since you two… ya know. Started dating or whatever,” Michael said, confusion and shame warring with him. He knew he’d been borderline ghosting Alex since he’d officially begun dating Forrest, but he’d felt like it was the best way to handle the situation. Alex wasn’t going to move on with him around anymore than he did when Alex was present in his life. He hadn’t thought he was being cruel though? And when did Alex not just storm in and demand his attention when he really wanted it?

Forrest was quiet, just watching Michael as he battled internally with his own guilt real or imagined. Finally, he broke through Michael’s spiral.

“So… So Alex and I talked about what his dad did to you back in high school. We also talked about how Alex dealt with his dad’s behavior before you came along and how he still deals with things when the pressure gets to just be… too much. Did… did you know that Alex self-harms?” Forrest asked quietly, eyes mapping over Michael’s features to see if he had known what he’d revealed. Michael hadn’t known. His chest suddenly felt hollow at the idea of Alex hurting himself, of creating physical pain to control emotional pain. He ached because he hadn’t known and Alex had never told him, had hidden that part of himself from Michael.

“I can see that you didn’t. Okay, well, shit. Okay, so that’s out of the bag. Now let me compound that knowledge by telling you that Alex still carries a lot of guilt around what happened with his dad and you. He logically knows it’s not his fault, but you know how it is… when your brain turns on you, you just sometimes can’t turn it off. And apparently today is the um… anniversary?... of that particular day. I kinda feel like this is something he does habitually on this day. I wasn’t even supposed to come over, I surprised him so I wouldn’t have even seen this is I hadn’t… but yeah,” Forrest trailed off. Michael knew he was staring at him, at the ghost-white skin and horror-stricken eyes. He must’ve looked so stupid, but he just couldn’t… couldn’t wrap his mind around what Forrest was telling him. He heard Forrest sigh loudly. “Look man, go in there and talk him down. I’m going to get out of here. Do whatever you have to do, okay? I can’t help him through this, he doesn’t need me.”

Michael watched him walk to the curb and get into his little black sedan. He heard the engine turn over and watched the car drive off down Alex’s road, turning right at the stop sign, and then out of Michael’s sight. He turned and looked at the door to Alex’s house, a few inches ajar, inviting Michael in. He was suddenly cold with fear, terrified he’d make this whole situation worse if he went in there and tried to talk to Alex. He hated Forrest for abandoning Alex, for abandoning them both, to let the Fate’s sort out as they would. He hated himself for thinking he knew every last piece of Alex’s soul and then finding out that he was woefully ignorant of such an important secret. He also hated that Alex hadn’t been the one to share that secret with him, that he’d had to hear it second-hand, and all that that meant. Ten years going on eleven. Ten anniversaries with one possibly being ‘celebrated’ while Michael stood outside pissing himself.

He pushed through the open front door and closed it quietly behind himself. He toed his shoes off in the foyer like he knew Alex liked people to do when visit. He threw his keys, wallet, and phone onto the front door sideboard. He didn’t think he’d be leaving tonight and sleeping with his pockets full was a pet peeve of his. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Michael turned and started towards the back of the house where the bedrooms were. The house boasted one bathroom, but it was well sized for the era of house it was in. Some previous owner must’ve sacrificed a closet to open it up. Michael pushed down on the newly installed lever door handle which stuck halfway down, proving it to still be locked. Cautiously, Michael pressed his ear to the door to see if he could hear anything on the other side. He didn’t know which he wished for, sound or silence. When silence greeted him, he felt like this might be worse.

He concentrated his TK on the door lock mechanism and slipped the lock. Slowly he pushed down the lever handle again and opened the door. He held his breath as the door swung inwards on silent hinges and his eyes tracked over every new inch of the room revealed by the opening barrier. Alex was laying in the bathtub. He still had his clothes on and he looked pale…deathly so. Michael had to clench his jaw against the tightening in his throat and the surge in his stomach. He stepped in and closed the door behind him quietly. Alex didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t seem to breathe. Michael walked over and looked down at him in the tub. He looked almost serene, his hands folded over his stomach, his knees bent and bare. He was laying there in a tank top and boxers. His prosthetic, liner, and jeans were piled against the wall between the toilet and the bathtub. Michael wondered if he could find all the places Alex had hurt himself; if he’d be able to tell the difference between the self-inflicted scars and the ones an unfair life had given to him. With a shaking hand, Michael pressed his fingers to Alex’s neck, intent on finding a pulse, when Alex’s dark eyes flew open and before Michael could blink, he was looking at the closed bathroom door with Alex’s arm around his neck as he held him in a choke hold. It only lasted for a second before he was being let go, his body falling forward as he gasped for air.

“Fuck! Michael what were you thinking sneaking up on me like that?” Alex yelled from behind him, voice echoing oddly on the bathroom walls. He sounded like he was angry like a parent would be angry and a child who’d scared them, covering fear with aggression. Michael coughed and turned his body to see Alex slumped back in the tub, one hand covering his eyes and other gripped tight in agitation. “I could have hurt you!”

“Oh, so you only get to hurt _you_ today, is that it?” Michael replied, surprised by how much anger his voice felt. He’d been so scared a moment ago that the transition to anger startled even him.

“What are you talking about? Why the fuck are you here, Guerin? Where’s Forrest?” Alex asked rapid-fire. His voice was slightly slurred and his pupils seemed impossibly huge.

“Forrest left, but not before calling me to tell me you were locked in here hurting yourself. Apparently, you’ve been hurting yourself for a long time…,” Michael paused, hoping Alex would deny it, but when he stayed quiet, Michael continued. “Why didn’t you tell me, Alex?”

“Why do you care? You walked away. You _looked_ away. It doesn’t matter what I do to myself, it’s none of your business!” Alex growled at him looking angry enough to throw hands.

“Because I love you! Is that what you want to hear? I fucking love you and I don’t like that you’re punishing yourself for something that isn’t even your fault!” Michael snarled back, hitting the cabinet next to him. Alex glared at him silently.

“You’re not the boss of me. You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t feel guilty about. It was my fault we were found in the shed. It was my fault for not stopping my dad from hurting you. It was my fault you had to use a half-functional hand for ten years. I caused that and I feel guilty for it, Guerin and you can’t change my mind about it!” Alex was yelling by the end, tears making his eyes shine in the warm fluorescent glow of the vanity lighting and Michael found him beautiful, even as his the corners of his mouth pulled down and he bared his teeth at him in agony. “This is my penance, Michael. Let me have it.”

Michael watched him, watched his face shatter, and watched his body pull in tight to itself against the side of the bathtub. He could see the barest hint of red smeared between Alex’s knee and calf as he listened to Alex begin to sob. It was such an ugly, raw sound that seemed to be clawing its way from his gut and inflicting as much damage as possible on its way out. It made Michael’s own face hurt, feel hot and flushed, vision blurring as he leaked tears in sympathy.

Awkwardly, Michael stood up and climbed into the bathtub next to Alex. He reached out and grabbed Alex’s shoulders, tipping his body towards Michael’s. Alex pushed him away at first, shaking his head and wiping roughly at his eyes, but when Michael tried again, he allowed it. He allowed Michael to pull him in against his body and wrap his arms around him. Then he clung to Michael. He shoved his face into he soft, almost threadbare cotton of Michael’s shirt and muffled a scream against his stomach. His body shook as he let Michael see what ten, going on eleven, years of bleeding was doing to Alex on the inside and Michael understood for the barest flicker of an instant why cutting might be a preferably way in Alex’s mind to deal with an anniversary of their shared trauma. Michael wouldn’t let him talk about it, tried to ignore it himself, but he’d used his ugly, malformed, half useless hand as his own penance for the same amount of time. He’d mourned losing the thing that hurt him every day because he’d been using it to assuage his own guilt. So he didn’t say anything, he let Alex sob. He let him scream, and clench his fists in Michael’s shirt, and do anything he wanted as long as he let Michael keep holding onto him.

When it quieted down, Alex laying limply on top of Michael’s torso breathing through his mouth because his nose had congested in the outpouring, Michael dared to speak.

“I don’t like that you hurt yourself. I don’t like it _at all_. But,” he said, giving Alex a look to keep him quiet while he finished, “but I understand it. I get the necessity in your mind for it. I just wish it hadn’t been necessary for you to find a way to let yourself feel things and control the output of those feelings. I wish the hurt you’ve lived through had never been so big you had to let it out a little at a time.”

They stayed like that for some time, until Alex's nose cleared and his breathing slowed until Michael was sure he’d fallen asleep. When he thought Alex was asleep for real, his weight heavy and loose against him, Michael let himself break down. He looked at Alex and thought of all the broken pieces of themselves they’d displayed over the years and wondered how he’d missed this one. How did he never notice? He strained to keep his muscles from shaking too hard and his breathing from coming out too loudly. He didn’t want Alex to add this to his own mountain of guilt. He watched a few tears darken the hair at Alex's crown and imagined a life without Alex in it. It felt unbearable.

A warm hand reached up and wrapped around the back of his neck, fingers squeezing the tense muscles almost like an apology.

“Can we go to bed? We’ll both regret it if we spend the night in here,” Alex asked, turning his head to look up into Michael’s face. His eyes were puffy and red still, but his expression just looked tired. He no longer looked like he was being burned alive and Michael tried to take some comfort in that.

“Yeah, sure,” Michael answered, sniffing loudly and wiping away his tears and snot with the sleeve of his shirt.

Alex moved off of him and Michael thought for a second he wouldn’t be able to stand the lightness it left in his wake. But he could, so he stood and offered a hand to Alex to help him stand.

“Crutches?” Michael asked succinctly as he steadied Alex with his hands.

“Carry me?” Alex requested softly, sounding shy as he gauged Michael’s reaction. Michael gave him a reassuring smile before bending to place his arm behind his knee and the other behind his back. When he felt Alex’s arms look around his neck he swung Alex’s body up and held it firmly against his own. Alex wasn’t a waif by any means, but Michael hauled car parts around for a living, so he wasn’t a burden either. He stepped out of the tub and he made his way to the bedroom. The sheets were messed up, pushed to the side that no one slept on and a small warm feeling of relief came over Michael when he realized he’d been looking for signs of Forrest. He gently deposited Alex next to the bed and noticed half dried blood on his arm. Michael checked the back of Alex’s leg and saw the small red line above his knee.

“Lay on the bed on your stomach and I’ll go get some antiseptic and a band aid for your leg,” Michael instructed Alex as he moved back towards the bedroom. He heard Alex moving onto the bed as he started rummaging under the cabinet for Alex’s first aid kit. He grabbed it and wet a washcloth in warm water before walking back to the bedroom. Alex had shed his shirt and was laying on his stomach staring into the empty air in front of him. Michael moved to the side of the bed and set the first aid kit on the bedside table. Then he started to clean the smeared, dried and half congealed blood from the back of Alex’s leg. As he did so he noticed thin, white scars next to the new open spot. Five hatch marks beside the new one. When he glanced at Alex’s other leg he saw five more on it, old and faded to practically invisible unless you were looking for them. Michael sucked in a breath, but instead of lashing out as he wanted to do, he clenched his jaw tightly shut and cleaned up the last of the mess on Alex’s skin. He tossed the rag towards the hamper and turned to the first aid kit.

“You know those aren’t all about that night. They’re about my entire childhood. My adulthood so far. And they’re about that night. It’s not just one thing. I was doing this to myself for years before I ever met you,” Alex intoned flatly, eyes meeting Michael’s for only a moment before falling back into staring at nothing ahead of him.

Michael didn’t respond, didn’t know how to respond, so he kept working. He grabbed an alcohol pad and swiped over the cut and then laid a piece of gauze over it, taping the edges securely. The gauze was probably overkill, it wasn’t a terribly deep cut, but he didn’t want it to bleed on Alex’s sheets in the night (and he secretly hoped it wouldn’t scar, wouldn’t turn into another tick to mark the years between them). When he finished he gathered his mess and took the first aid kid back into the bathroom, replacing it where he’d found it. Slowly, with growing trepidation, Michael approached the bed again.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked quietly, watching Alex’s face for his reaction. Alex closed his eyes as if the answer was far back in the recesses of his mind before he nodded and patted the inside of the bed next to him. Michael started to strip.

“I’m still dating Forrest,” Alex said as Michael reached for the button on his jeans. Michael looked at him, saw the regret in his eyes as he looked over the skin Michael had revealed so far. As far as consolation prizes went, it would have to do.

“I understand. But I’d like to not sleep in my jeans?” Michael said, hands still paused by the fly as he waited for Alex’s answer. Alex nodded and shut his eyes again, arms raising to snake under the pillow beneath his head and draw it closer to him. Michael finished stripping down to his boxers and crawled onto the bed next to Alex. He grabbed the covers and pulled it over them both before reaching past Alex’s shoulder to turn off the bedside lamp. He laid on his side facing Alex, trying to will his body to relax, but the adrenaline of the past few hours hadn’t turned into lethargy yet so instead he just tried to stay still and quiet.

“Guerin? Cover me?” Alex asked, turning his head to look at Michael as he did. Michael grabbed the blanket that was already covering mid-way up Alex’s back and pulled it to his shoulders. He saw Alex smile and shake his head minutely. “I mean lay on me a little. I wanna feel anchored tonight.”

“Uhhh… you’re still dating Forrest?” Michael repeated Alex’s earlier pronouncement with confusion obvious in his voice.

“I didn’t ask you to fuck me, I asked you to lay on me. _Platonically_. Or romantically, but not sexually. Just get over here, jeez,” Alex joked as Michael continued to look slightly confused. But Michael wouldn’t say no to Alex so he scooted closed and threw a leg over the back of Alex’s, his chest covering one of Alex’s arms and shoulder, and their faces resting very close together.

“Just because I’m dating someone else doesn’t mean I don’t love you and it doesn’t mean I don’t need you sometimes,” Alex said softly into the air between them. An invisible hand squeezed Michael’s heart, but it didn’t hurt like the rest of the night. This felt like a good ache like a growing pain.

“Me too, Alex. Good night?” Michael asked, snuggling his body closer as the air cleared between them.

“Good night.”

**Author's Note:**

> So if you're not too mad at me about all that, I'd love to hear what you thought! 
> 
> You can tell me here or come visit me at my [ tumblr!! ](http://skinsharpenedteeth.tumblr.com)


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